OPEN DIALOGUE SESSION 2: THE CITY AND PHOTOGRAPHY

The Open Cities Platform would like to invite you to the second Open Dialogue session of the Open Cities Platform, which will take place on Tuesday February 21 15.30 – 17.00 at Drift 13 0.05.

The Open Dialogue sessions are monthly recurring events during which OCP community members present on-going research, moderate community discussions or organize interactive sessions. Open Dialogues take place on every first Wednesday of the month throughout the academic year.

In this session titled ‘The City and Photography’, prof. dr. Paul Ziche will explore photography as the classic medium for documenting cities. All of us frequently do take photos in cities. But there are intriguing questions here: what makes a photo into a photo of a city? And is there a clear difference between taking photos in, or of, this particular city, and of a city in general? How can cityhood be made into a topic for photography? What is the relationship between photography and film, with respect to capturing cities/a city/the city (cinematic presentations of cities are a pretty prominent topic throughout the history of film)? What makes a photo into a photo of a particular city? Are ‚cityscapes‘ indeed an instance of the more general category of ‚landscapes‘?

We will explore these questions on the basis of photos that you bring along: bring some photos of cities (in any of the multiple senses of this term that have been hinted at), either your own photos or photos that you came across somewhere and found interesting, and we’ll discuss together what might be fitting categories for capturing cities via the medium of photography.

Feel free to to spread the word and share the invitation with your students as well. We are looking forward to seeing you on the 21st!